My First Day in Europe: Driving Through Germany
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
As I walked the ramp from the airplane to customs on the morning of Saturday, July 5, 2008, the first thought that entered my mind was that Germany must be a dunghole. The whole area had been ripped apart for construction and it looked like I had just entered a third-world country. As it happens, this was the only area of the country that made me feel this way. Of the eight European countries I visited, Germany was the nicest of all. Ahead of me were two weeks of traveling via planes, trains, and automobiles (as well as boats, taxis, buses, and subways) throughout the European continent. I had finally popped the pond after 36 years of remaining on the North American continent. Read the rest of this entry »
In the television world, there are a group of sitcoms that I strongly consider to be my shows. Some are obvious, some are not, and a few are very obscure. Among the not-so-obscure are the four major TV series starring one of my all-time comic idols Bob Newhart. The earliest of these series is The Bob Newhart Show, the story of a Chicago psychologist trying to survive amidst a bevy of crazies. Peter Bonerz played the role of Jerry Robinson, orthodontist inhabiting the same office building of Bob’s. Mr. Bonerz also made cameos on two of Newhart’s later series Bob and George & Leo. 
As a huge Honeymooners fan, I’ve always recognized that although Jackie Gleason and Art Carney always portrayed Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton respecitively, there were four actresses each who played their wives Trixie and Alice. I had always been puzzled as to why I had never seen one single photo of Sue Ann Langdon in her portrayal of Alice (nor Patricia Wilson as Trixie) from the time when Gleason performed Honeymooners sketches on The American Scene Magazine. Pictured at right is a rare shot of Frank Fontaine, June Taylor, Jackie Gleason, and Sue Ann Langdon – but obviously not in character. I later learned one reason that shots of her on the Honeymooners set were uncommon (or possibly non-existant): there were only two episodes of this Honeymooners incarnation. I had always assumed that there was an entire season’s worth of episodes. 
The black 1949 Hudson (seen at left at a car show from 1977) that Dad owned was probably the sharpest and most unique of all of the old cars that he collected while I was growing up. At the time of its purchase during the Summer of 1976, we already owned one Hudson, a